The big one for me is the electronic viewfinder. A digital screen is no substitute for an optical viewfinder. The contrast and colors are off, the image is much lower resolution, etc. It just looks ugly and I find it inadequate for composing a shot.

Leica don't have electronic viewfinders, neither do they have mirrors.

Size and weight may not be an issue for you, but it most certainly is an issue for some users. When you do this for a living, have a damaged right shoulder and carry 4kg of camera gear all day long, then size and weight is most certainly an issue. It's not an issue for everyone, but it is for some.

There are other issues such as noise, which isn't a problem for most, but a lack of noise is most certainly an advantage for some.

Why are people almost gleefully hoping for the demise of the SLR? I, for one strongly prefer an optical viewfinder to anything electronic. Give me an SLR anyday over anything mirrorless. My fear is that with so many people harking on the death of the SLR, that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.--Thanks.

Why are people almost gleefully hoping for the demise of the SLR? I, for one strongly prefer an optical viewfinder to anything electronic. Give me an SLR anyday over anything mirrorless. My fear is that with so many people harking on the death of the SLR, that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.--Thanks.

A mirrorless means no reciprocating mirror ala DSLR. Take away the mirror box and you have a different flange distance. This means its no longer an F mount.

Nikon will need to offer an electronic and mechanical adapter to pass the mechanical couplings from the old AIS lenses and electrical info from the rest of the present lenses to the new mirrorless body.

So the promise of a much smaller FF Nikon that mirrorless promises to be will only take place when new lenses for the new mount are available. Sounds like the situation Sony is in with the A7 a small camera body FF camera with a good sensor, but an empty bag without a system of lenses.

I hope Nikon is working on lenses because Nikon needs to have smaller lenses to balance well with the smaller body.

I wonder how much a sophisticated mechanical/electrical bridge adapter would cost $400 ?

So the real question in play is will mirrorless take over in those sensor sizes. For FF i sorta doubt it, but that comports with my view of FF's market role. it will never again be mass market; it is

Again? Was it ever truly mass market? Do you mean in the film days?

Ummm, yes Steve, i was referring to the film era.

The price sensitive APS/DX market will go that way it seems to me; all those entry level inter-changeable lens cameras in costco will be mirrorless soon i suspect.

They might, but a reverse consideration would be this - why would the Costco crowd care? If cost is low enough and they get what they want, I'm not sure the DX world will care. The camera lines are already minted and tooled up and would be very cheap to make.

Indeed, you and i agree, they don't care and it is all a matter of price. SLRs have the advantage now since -- as you say -- the fixed, non-recurring, costs of their manufacturing infrastructure is paid for and they can be price on a more-or-less marginal cost basis. This, however, is a transitory advantage and the vastly lower part count of the mirrorless designs will create a compelling cost advantage.

just how fast this will occur depends on a number of factors but, as i indicated, i lean toward thinking that it will be sooner rather than later. Certainly in other areas of consumer electronics (and that is what photography is now, sigh) changes like this happen in just a few years once the handwriting is on the wall. No firm wishes to be left holding a heavy stock of obsolete items.

And, just to be clear, i am on the SLR side of things for my personal use.

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gary ray

Semi-professional in early 1970s; just a putzer since then. interests: historical sites, virginia, motorcycle racing. A nikon user more by habit than choice; still, nikon seems to work well for me.

It would be great to have a fully compatible adapter to fit DSLR lenses of a given brand to that brand's mirrorless bodies. But Sony has been doing it longer, and has four such adapters to choose from, and even the most expensive one, about $350, is still not fully compatible. It's also fairly heavy at 160g.

I don't understand why it's apparently so hard to make them fully compatible, but as long as they are not, using them is a compromise.

It would be great to have a fully compatible adapter to fit DSLR lenses of a given brand to that brand's mirrorless bodies. But Sony has been doing it longer, and has four such adapters to choose from, and even the most expensive one, about $350, is still not fully compatible. It's also fairly heavy at 160g.

I don't understand why it's apparently so hard to make them fully compatible, but as long as they are not, using them is a compromise.

What do you mean fully compatible? Screw drive? Really old lenses (like the Df supports)?

At some point, you have to draw a line and say that the reason you went to mirrorless was to get smaller size so to realize the full benefit of the smaller size you have to go with a new mount that has a shorter flange distance and you have to leave out some things like a motor drive for old lenses. Otherwise, you just switched to mirrorless, but didn't gain one of the main benefits (which is smaller size) if you drag along all the compatibility baggage of the past with you and stay with the old mount.

What is a practical example of a Nikon lens that the Nikon 1 doesn't support (via the Nikon adapter) that it would make common sense for it to support?

More than 99% of current sales are of EVF only cameras. OVF do not make 1%. So this is not future, it happened a long time ago.

That would have to include P&S cameras. I think the context of this discussion is interchangeable lens cameras.

According to this recent post from Thom Hogan, the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera market is more or less holding steady against the DSLR market, with some regional differences. If I'm reading that article correctly, mirrorless has about 20% - 50% of the interchangeable lens camera market, depending on region. About 20% in the USA, about 50% in some parts of Asia.

It would be great to have a fully compatible adapter to fit DSLR lenses of a given brand to that brand's mirrorless bodies. But Sony has been doing it longer, and has four such adapters to choose from, and even the most expensive one, about $350, is still not fully compatible. It's also fairly heavy at 160g.

I don't understand why it's apparently so hard to make them fully compatible, but as long as they are not, using them is a compromise.

What do you mean fully compatible? Screw drive? Really old lenses (like the Df supports)?

At some point, you have to draw a line and say that the reason you went to mirrorless was to get smaller size

What I'm reading by many posters on this thread and others is that the main reason to go to mirrorless is because (they say) EVF is better in every possible way than OVF, and that OVF is a dinosaur with absolutely zero relevance today. No advantage whatsoever, to any imaginable kind of shooting, to OVF, according to many.

so to realize the full benefit of the smaller size you have to go with a new mount that has a shorter flange distance and you have to leave out some things like a motor drive for old lenses. Otherwise, you just switched to mirrorless, but didn't gain one of the main benefits (which is smaller size) if you drag along all the compatibility baggage of the past with you and stay with the old mount.

It sounds like you're saying there's no point in using the adapter anyway; that what we really should do is throw out our DSLR lenses and start over with mirrorless system lenses?

What is a practical example of a Nikon lens that the Nikon 1 doesn't support (via the Nikon adapter) that it would make common sense for it to support?

Features not supported by the Nikon FT1 adapter (about $200) for using Nikon F-mount lenses on Nikon 1 mirrorless bodies:

No continuous AF. Compatible with AF-S only.

Not compatible with multi-point AF. Compatible only with single-point AF, using only the center point.

With high-speed continuous shooting, focus is locked with the first shot. I'm not clear on what frame rate does allow each shot to be separately focused; this may not really be an incompatibility.

I don't think I'm the only one who would feel significantly compromised by at least the first two. For those who don't care about continuous AF and also don't care about using an AF point other than the center point to focus on, yes the adapter is the bee's knees.